


The View From Twelve Floors Up

by Berty



Category: due South
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 05:43:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8316061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berty/pseuds/Berty
Summary: Fraser has found a new and inventive way for Ray to die. He should really be used to this by now.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For my favourites - Saladscream, Pepe, Nicci and Ximeria, just like always.

So if I turn my head slightly to one side and close my left eye, the crack in the brickwork looks just like Florida with the pointy bit at the bottom.

“Ray?”

But if I turn it the other way and squint, the crack looks like a pointing finger.

“Ray?”

Or Dief’s tail, all fluffed up like he’s proud of something.

“Ray?”

Something like stealing food off my desk or finding something especially disgusting to smell or…

“Ray?”

_“What?”_

“I know this isn’t an ideal situation, but I can assure you that we are perfectly safe. For the moment.”

And that’s what brings me back to the here and now from my fascinating interlude with the wall. The wall I am currently staring at, my fingernails locked into the mortar, while the wind whistles and tugs at my clothes and hair. The wall and its ledge that the Mountie said was our only hope of escape. The wall that is a very, very long way above a very, very hard Chicago sidewalk. Me facing in, him facing out.

So let’s review here.

Crazy Mountie – check.

Very narrow ledge and wall with no handholds – check.

Threat of imminent death – check.

Actually I don’t know why I’m surprised anymore. This has been my life for the last eighteen months now. If Benton Fraser didn’t endanger my life on a weekly basis, I’d probably worry.

“ _Ray!”_

It’s possible that he’s been saying that for a while, so I turn my head an inch, no more and look at him. A wave of cold terror rushes up my spine and makes me feel weak as the wide sky I see over his shoulder just reminds me of how very high and how very screwed we are.

“We need to move, Ray. I believe that if we round the corner we will find a window. Now it might be reinforced glass but I believe your issued firearm will be sufficient to break it.”

I’m not going to nod at him, if that’s what he’s thinking. Nodding is moving and that’s where we have a small problem.

“So, after you, Ray. Ray? If you don’t mind?”

My hands are beginning to cramp and I can feel beads of cold sweat running down between my shoulders and soaking my shirt at the small of my back.

“Ray? I think it’s possible that we may still be able to catch them. They will head for the waterfront and the quickest way for them to get there at this time of day is to use Division Street. If we cut across Maple we could intercept them at…Ray?”

He peers at my face more closely and I can see that he’s lost his hat. Probably the wind. Definitely didn’t feel this windy when we were safely down at street level.

“We need to move,” he says slowly and carefully.

“Can’t.” My words come out as a pathetic breath.

“One step at a time, Ray. You can do this.”

“Can’t.”

“Are you hurt?”

I shake my head without thinking and taste bile when everything swims for a little. A hand settles on my shoulder and just for a second I feel a bit safer.

“Can you move your hand?”

“No.”

“Alright. Don’t think about anything but your feet, Ray. Just slide your right foot along the ledge then simply shift your weight.”

“I _can’t,”_ I hiss at him.

There’s a scraping sound and the soft creak of his leather jacket, instantly whipped away by another gust.

“Look at me, Ray,” he says.

I hadn’t actually realised that my eyes were screwed shut, but look at him? That I can do.

He’s much closer to me suddenly. His serious face fills my range of vision, even without the hat. His eyes are the truest blue you’ve ever seen and his hair has blown out of its perfect Mountie slick into a mess of curls and tufts.

“Keep your eyes on me, Ray.”

Well that’s no hardship.

“Just slide your foot ten centimetres to the right.”

“Wha…what’s ten centimetres?”

“Three point nine inches.”

Of course.

And I try, I do. The muscles in my thighs actually ache from fighting with my brain over this. But it’s just not happening.

“Fraser, I can’t. I can’t.”

“Alright, what if I tell you that the only way we are getting off this ledge is around that corner? It’s approximately twenty steps, Ray. Twenty steps and you’re safe.”

I know that’s a lie. I can think of at least one other way that we’ll get off this ledge, and it only takes one step.

“I’ll do the paperwork on this one, Ray. And… clear your backlog. Just think of that. All up to date and ship shape!” He nods and smiles confidently. “Just a few metres, around that corner and we’re done.”

The noise from the street below filters up intermittently, sometimes louder and then fading away to nothing. There’s a weird buzzing sound in my ears and I seem to keep forgetting to breathe.

His eyes on me are calm and steady – a point that doesn’t move. “And I’ll buy you dinner, okay? A proper restaurant with real food, no moss or sticks. Twenty steps and dinner is on me, Ray.”

I want to smile. I want to apologise to him. I wish I could explain how my heart is making my whole body shudder with its hammering and tell him about the swooping, empty feeling in my belly. But my mouth is so dried out it’s all I can do to drag breath in. So I just stare at him, like an idiot.

He glances down and blinks. I guess we must be drawing quite a crowd by now. Even without the ‘please shoot at me’ Mountie red, we must be pretty obvious up here.

My fingers are sore and cramping on the grainy mortar. The rough cold of the bricks is bleeding through my jeans and into my trembling muscles. Before long they will go numb. I might not even notice that I’ve fallen until it’s too late.

“And I’ll kiss you.”

I jerk so hard, he puts that warm hand back on my shoulder. If he’s trying to help my fragile state of mind, this is not the way. I though I’d been subtle. I thought I’d kept it on the quiet, this thing I have for him. Obviously not.

It’s not like I don’t know what it is, I just haven’t actually labelled it yet. Because that makes it real and real makes it a problem.

“Right foot, Ray. Keep your eyes on me and move your right foot.” And he smiles. Like I’ve already done it or something. And it seems that I have because he follows it up with another command. “Now the left foot. Slowly, Ray.”

His gaze never wavers, he never looks down or around me, it’s like I’m the only thing in the world worth looking at right now. He keeps his voice even and never strays more than three point nine inches from my side. And I’m not counting, but it feels like a whole lot more than twenty steps, particularly when we edge around the corner and a whole new wave of _wrongness_ grabs me, not to mention the wind that swings around and comes at us even harder from the opposite direction.

But Fraser just says, “You’re almost there, Ray,” and licks his bottom lip and I take the next step, and the next, never looking where I’m going, trusting Fraser to keep me from stepping out into a void.

When we reach the window, it’s Fraser that uses my Beretta to break the glass, insisting that I later write him up for using a weapon he isn’t licensed to use in the US. He kicks in the remaining shards and talks me through getting myself inside without spilling blood.

And there’s carpet and floorboards and a ceiling above me and I chose this moment to lose feeling in my legs and slide to the floor. I think I could sit here forever and never get sick of it. No wind, no gaping, open spaces, no imminent death.

But Fraser reaches a hand down to me, and as much as I currently love a good quality carpet, I love Fraser more, so I take it. He pulls me up to standing and lays one on me. The kiss he promised me. Fast, but firm and warm, lips parted, eyes closed (his, not mine) – it’s a good kiss.

“Good work, Ray,” he says quietly as we stand chest to chest. He smiles, lets go of my hand and then runs off down the corridor.

I decide to revisit the carpet again for a few moments.

*

He actually catches two of the guys we had marked before I pull myself together and get there. We run the other two down that afternoon with help from Dief. Despite my brush with the sweet hereafter this morning, it’s been a pretty good day. Welsh even grunted a ‘well done’ at us.

So I’m finishing up the paperwork – to be fair, he did most of it - and it’s getting late. The day shift have all gone home except us and the bullring is as quiet as it ever gets. Too early for drunks and B & E’s, too late for the day’s ongoing cases, my fingers sound too loud on the keyboard. Fraser is sitting with his hat on his knees. Some homeless guy had found it in the street below and Fraser had to give him twenty bucks to get it back. I’d have let him keep it.

I hit the final period, save it and switch off the computer.

“Done!” I announce, leaning back in my chair.

“I believe I owe you dinner, “ Fraser says, a shade too hearty. And suddenly it’s awkward.

In the craziness of today, the heat of the chase and the boredom of getting it all squared away, we’ve kind of avoided any reference to what happened up there. Now it seems like it’s all flooding back and I’m fighting that slow, rolling feeling in my guts again.

“Nah, Frase. You don’t have to…”

“I’d like to,” he interrupts quickly and looks away. “If you’re hungry.”

I wait for him to look at me, try to gauge what’s going on here, but he won’t. He’s suddenly very interested in Dewey’s empty desk.

“Yeah, I’m hungry, yeah, okay,” I shrug.

He stands, smiles and puts on the hat. “Let’s go, Ray.”

*

We end up in a steak place I know a block or two from the precinct. It’s not exactly ‘Stella’ nice but I like it. There’s conversation but I can’t say it’s easy. It doesn’t help that the wolf is watching us through the window – every bite from plate to lips. Even when I rag on Fraser about what might be living in his hat since it was adopted by the homeless guy he doesn’t run with it like he usually does. I was expecting a story about licking things or traditional remedies or something – he usually has a story.

Finally we run out of topics altogether and as we finish our food, we’re reduced to avoiding each other’s eyes and quick smiles when we don’t quite make it. He calls for the check.

I put down a few bills to cover my meal and a tip on the table.

“No, Ray. This is on me, as I said.”

“No way, buddy. If it wasn’t for you I’d still be up there right now,” I tell him. “So…so thanks.”

He nods thoughtfully and lays down a matching number of bills. “You did really well up there today,” he says quietly.

I laugh hollowly. “Yeah, I was a regular Batman.”

“Nonsense, Ray! It’s perfectly normal to…”

“Fraser, if you hadn’t been there…”

“All you required was the motivation to…” he pauses and flicks a glance at me. “To take your mind off the situation.”

Oh, right. _That’s_ where I left the fucking massive elephant in the room.

Motivation. Namely my motivation to overcome the paralysing terror of a twelve floor fall. Corporal Benton Fraser, or his lips, at least. And he knew that. He _knows_ that. Some undercover cop I am.

Our check comes, breaking the century long silence that follows. Pleasantries are exchanged, a paper-wrapped packet is produced “for your dog” and I stand and listen to the “actually, he’s half wolf” story for the four hundred and eighty seventh time.

At least Dief is having a good evening, and with a few words of warning from Fraser, he takes the packet and lopes off up the street, leaving Fraser and me to walk back to the precinct.

We talk about the case a bit. The pauses in between get longer and more difficult and I can’t help the feeling of relief when we finally get to my car.

“I’ll take you home,” I tell him as I unlock.

“Thank you, Ray, but I think I’ll walk…”

“Get in the car, Fraser,” I insist. It’s been one hell of a day and tomorrow’s gonna be another one, but if we have any chance of finding ‘normal’ again, then it starts here. I drive him home; it’s how this works. We fight crime, we catch perps, we eat and I drive him home.

“Really, Ray. It’s a beautiful night…”

“ _Fraser!”_ My hand slapping down on the roof to the Goat is louder than I imagined and it startles him.

It’s not far to the consulate and he turns his stupid hat over and over on his lap about a million times on the way. My head is full of noise and loops and dead-ends, and it’s not until we turn into his street that I can put it into words.

“How did you know?”

He’s quiet while I pull up outside his building and I’m pretty sure that I’m not getting an answer, but at least he isn’t playing dumb. If he can tell me what gave me away then I can sort it out, find a way to fix this maybe.

“It wasn’t anything you did or said, Ray,” he says finally instead of getting out and running away to Canada.

“So someone else told you?” I’m screwed. Someone _else_ has noticed my interest in Fraser? Christ. I’m done. I’m _so_ done.

“No.”

He doesn’t make a move to go. And I can’t seem to find a single thing to say.

He sighs and licks his lips. “I thought that perhaps you might have developed an interest in me. You seem to enjoy my company and to want to include me in… I understand that being a police officer is a difficult environment for you to be open about any…” He falters for a moment, “…preferences, so I imagined that you wouldn’t…even if you were aware of…”

If he’s looking for me to help him out here, he’s out of luck. My heart is lodged so hard in my throat it’s a miracle I can breathe at all.

“I didn’t _know,_ Ray,” he says finally. “I _hoped.”_

He gets out of the car with a quiet ‘goodnight’ and I feel like I’m up on that ledge again. I pull away back onto the street and I can feel the wind, the ringing in my ears, the swooping in my belly. Can’t let go. Mustn’t let go. I’ll never survive the fall.

I turn the car around, park and throw my badge on the dash so I don’t get towed. He answers the door quickly when I knock, hasn’t even had time to hang up his stupid, louse-infested hat.

I step out into the void.

“You still owe me a kiss.”

He blinks at me and looks confused for a second. “But I…”

“Are you saying you don’t?”

His face clears and a tiny smile quirks the right side of his mouth as he opens the door and pulls me inside.

 

Fin


End file.
